Read Online Electric Moon by Stacey Brutger - Free Book Online Page B

probes.
    No tests.
    So why did that make her more twitchy?
    She followed his gaze toward the crime scene, her feet drawn
forward against her will.
    The first thing that caught her attention was the oddly red
tinted car windows. As she drew nearer, her skin pebbled as her mind finally
processed what she was seeing.
    Blood.
    In the next step, a familiar smell slammed into her.
    Raw meat and rotten blood. Even with the car being sealed,
she swallowed at the strength of the stench invading her sinuses. The
conditions, coupled with the heat, had created a homemade pressure cooker. It
took nearly a minute for her to control her gag reflexes.
    “The doors were locked from the inside when we arrived.” Scotts
didn’t say more as she studied the scene. She was barely aware of him and the
techs.
    Though parked under the streetlight, the car seemed to draw
the darkness, reluctant to reveal its secrets. The police set up other lights,
but nothing could take away the death hovering over the vehicle like a living
thing.
    “How do you know they weren’t switched from the outside by
remote?” Randolph appeared abnormally fascinated as he stood behind the yellow
police tape. She was surprised that he stayed, drew attention to himself with
the question.
    Scotts ignored him. Raven peered closer at the car and
answered. “The keys are still in the ignition. There are no smears. The gore on
the side panels hasn’t been disturbed.” None besides the drips of blood and
flesh as it slid down every surface.
    Raven purposely avoided looking at the woman sitting in the driver’s
seat.
    She was human.
    Not the source of the detonation.
    Similar to the last crime scene, the shifter was reduced to nothing
much more than gelatin, pieces of him oozing from the interior of the car.
    Raven did her best to breathe through her mouth. The decay
told her that they had to have been there for a while, just in time for decomp
to fully kick in with the late summer heat. That the other police officers
didn’t react to the smell told her that the other side of her nature had kicked
in to help.
    She wrinkled her nose, wishing it wouldn’t help so much.
    Tennis shoes lay discarded on the passenger side. They were
red and twisted nearly inside out like they’d been through a dryer. She
couldn’t find enough of a shirt to swear to a color. The jeans had dozens of
holes, the seams ripped apart where it couldn’t contain the blast.
    Nothing else remained of him, vanishing as if he’d never
existed.
    Same as the last crime scene.
    The condition of the car surprised her. Other than some
cosmetic damage, the interior remained relatively whole despite the force it
took to tear a person apart from the inside out. The windshield was peppered
with half a dozen chips. The plastic had what looked like speaker holes in odd
places. A few cracks marred the hard dashboard. Tiny rays of light filtered
into the side windows, like the glass was perforated, the shards traveling so
fast it passed right through without even shattering.
    The process of cataloging the car first helped switch gears
in her mind from emotion to analytical. She crouched and got the first good
look of what was left of the woman’s face. “Do you suppose she was the target
or collateral damage? What do we know about her?” She aimed her question at
Scott’s but didn’t glance away from the scene.
    “We’ll have the whole vehicle towed back to the precinct to
examine, but we were able to match her DMV records as owner of the car. She
lived in the corner apartment building.” He pointed the pen over his shoulder
at a building cloaked in pale light of the streetlamps as he checked his notes.
“We’re checking with the super to find out more. According to him, the shifter
is male and lives at the same residence.”
    Raven straightened, and walked around the vehicle, something
nagging at her.
    “What do you see?” Scotts was studying her and not the crime
scene.
    “She’s been dead for at least